REAR-VIEW MIRRORS AND WINDSHIELDS

Looking back on 2016 one can of course cite many horrors and many disappointments. But when one either looks more closely at  what’s happened in the world at large, a large number of blessings also become apparent: in India 800,000 volunteers planted 50 million trees in one day to help the country reforest 12% of its surface, while for the first time ever, 93% of the planet’s children learnt to read and write. One does need to be careful about absorbing “news” from media, especially television, internet and even print. Newspaper editors long worked on the principle “if it bleeds, it leads”, and this has now spread to almost all media. Social media, on the other hand, are sometimes even worse, as they can spread the steaming private rage of individuals faster than any (other) epidemic. One of the rare exceptions is the French daily La Croix, which resolutely continues to inform rather than titillate or judge, which invariably explains both sides of difficult questions, and which pays as much attention to good news as to catastrophes. (Le Monde, of which someone who worked there in the Fifties once said, “It’s not a newspaper, it’s a university”, still informs very well but has moved further away from impartiality – leftwards – and is temperamentally gloomy.)

For individuals, looking back on a year gone by is usually a bit nostalgic, slightly (or deeply) sad, rueful, or cautiously thankful. It’s a collective version of the eve-of-birthday mindset; it’s the painful travail out of which new year’s resolutions will shortly be born.

None of this should properly apply to prayer.

God does not ask us to apply ourselves more energetically to doing better at everything. God does not ask us to judge the rest of the world, even politicians. God does not ask us to hate our nasty enemies with more intensity and if possible to wipe them off the face of the earth. God does not ask us to be revenged on those who did ill to us or to our loved ones.

God asks only one thing: that we return His love. With every fibre of our being. And this is largely done not by increased activity but by allowing Him to visit, to move in, to take over. It’s almost passive, but it does take concentration: we ask Him to open our doors and windows so that He can enter and take up residence.

Once we embark seriously on doing that, resolutions become superfluous.



The illustration is William Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World" (1849-53) in Keble College Chapel, Oxford. Note that the door on which Christ knocks is overgrown and clearly unused to being opened, and has no handle: it can be opened only from the inside. Our inside.

A TRUMP VOTER, A COLLEGE PROFESSOR, AND THE MAYOR OF PARIS WALK INTO A BAR . . .

  

Three events.

One: A recent New York Times column by Thomas Edsall who attempted, with the help of some current social psychologists, to make sense of the mentalité of those who enthusiastically support Donald Trump’s election campaign. Much of the general resentment felt by the typical Trump voter, Edsall claims, is the resentment felt by those who feel their freedom, their small liberties of thought and action, being taken away, or at least impugned and contemned, by those who claim to be more intelligent, better educated, more moral and more concerned with the General Good. The freedoms concerned are not necessarily either good or nice; the consciousness of this only adds to the felt resentment when they are taken away. The villain doing the taking-away is named, for want of a better term, Political Correctness; and the vague guilt mixed in only fuels the anger.

Two: On the other side of the coin – perhaps: perhaps just an adjacent side of a polygon – is a recent column by the very humanitarian Nicholas Kristof, on “Liberal Intolerance,” in which he chided American academia for its intolerance toward conservatives, particularly evangelical Christians, and for which he got a flood of furious comments from liberals who felt that “idiots” have no place in their institutions.

Three: On this morning’s French radio news, an announcement by the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, that as of July 1 all cars older than 1997 will be banned from the city of Paris between 8 AM and 8 PM. A laudable anti-pollution measure, to some; for others, a hindrance for the poor who cannot afford newer cars to get to their few and hard-won jobs. Never mind, says the mayor: we will give them free passes on public transit. But that would also force them to trade the small space of comfort and privacy that is a car (even an old banger in a traffic jam) for standing-room-only sardine-space in commuter trains (which also, in France, go on strike regularly).

All this made me – one of the Politically Correct: educated, reasonably moral, reasonably well off – very thoughtful, as I said. If we consider we are objectively right, we have an instant and pressing duty of charity toward those who, we think, are wrong. And the very first part of that pressing duty is to call into question our own opinions and attitudes. Opinions, because it is possible that those we disagree with may not be entirely wrong, and their opinions may at the least be understandable; attitudes, because it is our duty, even in simple human kindness, to approach the bloke or the woman next door, beside us in the waiting-room, or holding forth in a bar, to quote the saying, “as someone fighting a desperate battle you know nothing about.”

What are the consequences for a Christian? At many moments, one could see this as merely the world, shouting. In so far as it is media-speak and does not touch our own lives, we should be right to tune it out. On the other hand, it may impinge, in a waiting-room, in a bar, or during a dinner with friends. And then our hand will show. Have we, in quieter moments, thought about such things? Have we, at times, called our instinctive and even our considered opinions into question? Are we prepared to distinguish between our beliefs and our human understanding and loving-kindness? Do we ask ourselves how our socially responsible opinions and attitudes hold up under the Cross? These are not rhetorical questions. They may hold up; we may distinguish, and love. But what the Cross does is ask the question, and make us ask it also.

As the Carthusians say, Stat Crux, dum volvitur orbis. The world turns: the Cross stands.

IT'S 2018. I HAVE JUST BEEN APPOINTED . . .

I have updated this post from 3 1/2 years ago, because I still like it.

St Mary's Church, Kersey, Suffolk

IT’s 2018. I HAVE JUST BEEN APPOINTED ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

Oh dear. Now what? I have an indeterminate term ahead of me, I am about to be appointed by the Sovereign, and I need to know what to do to, for, and with the 77 million Anglicans of whom I will soon be the titular spiritual head. Not in any authoritative sense, for, true to traditional Anglican muddle, Canterbury is in no way a Pope. He has no power; he has no authority other than moral and traditional; he cannot order much and can command less. And nowadays, most Anglicans will be sure to disagree with him vehemently on almost all issues they consider important. So?

This has its good points, too. Canterbury can, if he likes, be individual, eccentric, and stubborn; and if he is seen to have a touch of holiness, or even greatness, he may get away with it. Rowan Williams, on the other hand, showed us all exactly what to avoid when he said that any successor of his should proceed ‘with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other’. Under that reportedly saintly man, the Church let its agenda be set by the media, and was thus always seen to be behind. Michael Ramsey, who admittedly lived in the prehistoric age Before Twitter, is a better example. When asked by a bratty Oxford undergraduate ‘Your Grace, what’s wrong with the Church of England?’ he murmured not one word about sex, gender, or LGBT, but said crisply, ‘It doesn’t preach enough.’

So here I am, with two short months before my intronisation, and some serious praying to do. I’ll start with Don Camillo. That only slightly fictitious Italian parish priest talked frequently with the crucified Christ on the wall of his church, and dealt with local ex-virgins and would-be Communists on the strength of it. We may think him pawky, but those conversations will, I suspect, be a good way to start. Right, Lord?

What (few will ask because most think they know) is wrong with the Church of England? And those other churches in our Communion? I’d begin by showing people what’s right. It is a national Church, and one of the few; because it has the vocation to be a national Church, it cannot hide itself in a comfy closed doctrinal closet but must worry the issues until they succumb. It is on the whole a tolerant Church, a reasonably kindly Church, an unpretentious Church, a Church that functions best when assembling many people of different points if view for a liturgy of Matins or Communion followed by coffee or sherry, and cake.

It is not good at taking positions on knotty problems beloved by television talk-show hosts. It is not good at dealing with morals beyond the Great Commandments. It is not good at being Cool. It is not good at being political. It is not good at being Progressive, or Liberal, or Conservative. It is not good at being Ecological or Diverse.

So I think that I will not try to be any of those things. Journalists with microphones and enormous cameras will try to make me, and I will prepare a few good one-liners to send them home with. But I will not bite.

Instead, I will surprise them. I will give each of Britain’s parishes the choice of being, like the hexes in Jack Chalker’s Well World novels, Wild, Half-Wild, or Tame, the choice to be made by all members in a parish referendum. Wild parishes will permit everything, from gay marriage to djembe-rock services; Half-Wild will choose from a small list which changes they will adopt, but will then be stuck with those for twelve years before a review; Tame parishes will be traditional (and BCP) in every way, whether Low, High, or Broad. Once those choices are made, I will put a twelve-year moratorium on all discussions of ‘modernization’, whether of morality or of liturgy, in the Church.

The place of these will be taken by an enormous effort of spirituality, accompanied (but not replaced) by active charity. Discussion will be allowed of matters of theology, but not encouraged: I will try to steer my fractious Church in the direction of being a praying Church rather than a forum for disagreement. I will put huge effort into encouraging vocations, both priestly and religious, and maintain and encourage all Anglican religious orders. Since my appointment coincides with the 350^th anniversary of the Restoration (1668) Prayer Book, I will direct that for one year it be used in all prime-time parish services, with Common Worship relegated for that time to 8 a.m. I will institute part-time seminars on preaching for all Church of England rectors and curates, and encourage longer, text-based sermons in all Sunday services.

An easily-overlooked feature of these changes is that they are low-cost financially. On that front, I will encourage a new form of tithing compatible with high taxation, and I will appoint a committee to study the feasibility of part-time curates. I will encourage Government to increase its assistance in maintaining historic churches and their fabric, and encourage the creation of lay readers and Matins and Evensong services led by them.

Finally, I will initiate a large effort of promulgating the knowledge of Anglican spirituality and its history, including the lives of persons to be venerated; I will institute popular courses on the thought of Hooker and Burnet, on the sermons of Donne and Newman (even though he left for Rome), and on the poetry of Herbert and Watts.

Thinking about this has almost made me eager to begin. Thanks, Lord.    

Christmas Carol Service, Canterbury Cathedral

 

CROWDSOURCING

What to make of Palm Sunday? I’ve always found it difficult to deal with. On the one hand it’s a relief from bloody Lent: all those happy crowds and we can wave palms get a palm cross in church and exhibit it at home and at least have one good moment. On the other hand, where’s it going?

Thinking of it now, I’m struck by the fact that, first of all as I’ve said before, there were all these people stunned by Jesus whom we never think about. Not the Disciples, not the ones who gave up everything to follow him about; just ordinary folk whose cousin got healed by this amazing Galilean (read: Yorkshireman or Vermonter) and who’d heard him preach and just got carried away and were hoping he was the Real Thing.

There was Talk going around. Is he going to come to Jerusalem for Passover? You’ve got to be kidding. He’s not crazy. He could get dead doing that. You know how the Man has it in for him. He’s gonna stay a loooooong way away. Caesarea Philippi, say, or Tiberias.

No. No! My cousin’s boyfriend told me he’s coming to Jerusalem! For Passover! Really? Really! He’s nuts. But what guts. You have to admire it. It takes a lot of mojo to do that, this year. OK, let’s go see him. Yes: I heard he’s going to come in like ---- who is it, remind me? the character from Isaiah? the Messiah as poor suffering bugger? riding on a donkey? Where? Well, at the North Gate, tomorrow afternoon. Yes, my son-in-law tweeted me. Ok, let’s all go there and cheer him on. He really has a nerve.

And so the crowd goes. And so he rides in. And so they rip off palm branches (where I live there are palms, but not enough to rip branches off – not like Florida, say), and throw them on the ground like a red carpet. And Jesus, for a moment, is the Star. Coming down the steps at Cannes, having his star on the sidewalk in LA, paparazzi clicking and whirring away, this is the Messiah the way we’d like him: overwhelming, exciting, an Event. PROPHET HAILED ON ENTRY TO CITY. TRAFFIC HALTED ON ALL MAJOR ARTERIES. POLICE DISPUTE FIGURE OF 50,000. “NO VIOLENCE,” SAYS COMMISSIONER, SURPRISED.

Of course, it all goes South. Media hero today, hounded tomorrow. Those palms have a bitter taste. Yeah, I went, and it was great, but I heard that it’s not going anywhere, the Temple police are looking for him, he’s accused of blasphemy and that is not a joke, they’re going to get him. OK guys, joke over, I’m going home, my wife doesn’t want me involved with scary stuff, and I can’t blame her.

And where are all these crowds, five days later?

And where would I have been?



Image: Giotto, "Entry into Jerusalem", fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua, ca. 1305